Audiobook Books

Nicholas Sparks is one of the few writers that make you stop and savour his words, his sentences....He is an amazing writer that grabs you from the very beginning. The Notebook is one of those books that you can read over and over again...It is a classic and a must have in your book shelf. JUST AMAZING!!!

I read the book before seeing the movie. My daughter had advised me not to attend the movie in the theater, but to wait til it was on DVD because she felt it would be too emotional for me. Though the story is a bit thin at places and the characters are sometimes a bit cliche, I still loved the book and the movie. I cried through both of them because my mother died with Alzheimer's Disease. My father was a devoted caregiver to her throughout her illness. For someone trying to cope with the effects of this disease on the family, this movie can be very moving. It reminds you of what you have lost, but it also stirs up those happy memories from the past.

The book The Notebook was very good. it had a very good message to it which was to listen to your heart. When you are stuck in a situation that needs solving, you listen to your heart and do what you think is best. When Allie went and visited Noah, and became close to him, she didn't know what to say to her husband, Lon, about it.

This book was so beautiful, I couldn't put it down. If only we all could find a love like this once in a lifetime, and hang onto it!

Sparks does an OUTSTANDING job with describing the settings of this story.....one can "vividly see" the places throughout the story.....i found myself reading this book slower than i usually do because it was just so much better for my imagination....i wanted to make sure i "soaked" in the environment.....GREAT job Sparks!
Thanks for such a beautiful story.

This is a wonderful program, I really do enjoy the way that it is structured. It is designed to both educate and entertain you, it is phenomenol by all means. I highly recommend it.

I truly love this series. I wish they would record the entire dictionary the same way. If you want to listen to a super enjoyable vocabulary, this is it. The words might not be as advanced as you are looking for, but the fun in listening is worth the few dollars spent: five stars.

This sets contains 5 CDs, and goes over about 230 words. Good number of the words on these recordings seem to be on a high-school level.

The first CD covers the vocabulary related to: The Raw and The Cooked; Stop and Go; Crime and Punishment.

The second CD coverts the vocabulary related to: At Home and Abroad; Hide and Seek; War and Peace.

The third CD covers the vocabulary related to: The Fiendish and The Friendly; Body and Soul; Chaos and Control.

The fourth CD covers the vocabulary related to: Old News; Rich Man, Poor Man; The Rise and Fall.

The fifth CD covers the vocabulary related to: Church and State; Franks and Beans.

The recordings are very entertaining to listen to. After defining the words, they are dramatized, often in a humorous way, adding fun to the learning process.

I bought volume 1 & 2 together. Here's my review of volume 1 which also applies to volume 2:

I bought this product with hopes of a more enjoyable way to expand my vocabulary. I tried to like this product (especially since it's a good chunk of money) and I gave it a fair amount of my time. In the end, I found it to be ineffective for these reasons:
- The script is boring. It tries to be witty, but really comes of as cheesy/corny
- I found myself constantly rewinding. The material just doesn't sink in. The stories and dialogue aren't memorable. Perhaps this is so because of the pace. I'd rather have fewer words and actually learn those words, than sweep through many words and have to backtrack. I'd say on average the amount of time spent listening to the material was TRIPLED because of rewinding.
- The voices are a bit stuffy and robotic to me

In the end I stopped listening to Word Smart. It was just too laborious.

I bought this CD thinking that it would be a productive way to spend my commutes in the morning. It was however only mildly more productive than listening to idiot DJs on the radio. I think that I knew 80% of the words by 15 years of age. The only benefit gained was hearing them pronouced but being British I had grave suspicions concerning the US pronounciations! The two presenters are funny and quite listenable. I would recommend these CDs to high school students who do not read books but still hope to master thre English language well enough to pass exams.

This is one of the better books in an already excellent series. Most of the good points of the series is played up in this title, while many of the bad parts are missing, making for an overall good read.

The thing that makes Plum books good, beyond Stephanie herself, are the side characters. Seven Up has introductions of some of the more interesting and enjoyable characters, including Moony and Doug "the Dealer", both of whom you instantly like. Even the one shot characters like Benny and Ziggy are enjoyable.

The one character I have a problem with is Joyce. She is one note, and that note has been played. I wish Evanovich would move away from that character. Of course, the big thing in this book is her deal with Ranger. It is nice to see their relationship move forward, as it was starting to feel a bit stalled.

The story is what you can expect from a Plum novel. A mystery that is not overly complex but that does have enough twists and turns to keep things interesting.

If you are a fan of the series, this is a must have. You will not regret it.

After I read the sixth book in the Plum series, I started thinking they were all sounding the same: Stephanie flubs yet another apparent slam-dunk apprehension, gets shot at, can't find her pepper spray, on-again/off-again with Joe Morelli, sees black spots before her eyes -- please. I just want her to develop some -- get better at her job, give it up, organize her purse -- anything!

And there's more of the same in this seventh book, too. For the uninitiated, Stephanie Plum is a reluctant bounty hunter in Trenton, New Jersey, and the wackiest things always happen to her as she's trying to bring in her FTAs (failed-to-appear). Surrounded by a cast of characters out of Central Jersey Casting (crazy grandma, grumbly dad, nervous mom, prostitute-turned-assistant...), she fumbles her way into the most improbable situations. Her cars get trashed; her apartment gets broken into. You get the idea.

But a funny thing happened to me with this book: I just sat back and read and enjoyed the darned thing, formula and all. Ms. Evanovich is just a funny writer, and this book was just a fun speed read (it was due the next day at the library). I will continue with the series, even if (or maybe especially if) Stephanie stays the same. She's finally kind of growing on me.

I loved the first 6 Stephanie Plum novels on CD, but the reader of #7 is horrible. Her delivery is v-e-r-y s-l-o-w. It ruins the pace of the book. Also, she gives really strong accents (which are really bad, by the way) to everyone. Everyone EXCEPT Stephanie, the quintessintial Jersey girl. Stephanie sounds like a 50 year old midwestern matron.

Skip this audiobook. The reader is terrible. She tries to do a Jersey accent that comes off sounding like she has a speech impediment and a lisp. Bad!!

I've listened to the first six Stephanie Plum books and absolutely loved the reader and laughed out loud while listening. Unfortunately, the reader for this book is just horrid, not a speck of the same characters in the voice as in the first six books. I hope this reader, Tanya Eby doesn't do anymore Stephanie Plum novels. Please give us the original reader back!

Never expecting Dean Koontz to write a series, I was surprised, but pleased, to see Odd Thomas reappear in more books. While the book sticks to Koontz' mix of scary and bizarre, the characters are normal and enchanting. I never expected to think of a protagonist of his as sweet, but Odd is. He copes with all the strangeness in his life and whatever frightening situation he finds himself in with grace, humor (very important to me), and compassion.

Not worth the paper its printed on. Quantum claptrap already used in dozens of books.
Really thin on character development and please, can someone smack Thomas out of his whining?
I can't believe I will probably read the next one!! but nothing about dogs! enough of the golden retrievers already... about a Pitt or a Chihuaha?

I think the quirky Odd Thomas to be the most like-able character in Dean Koontz novels. He's believable & I love the tongue in cheek humor. The story, I found, really bogs down in places. I also thought the plot to be a bit over the top. If not for the humor exuded by Thomas & his Russian ally I think the book would fail. The plot just doesn't cut it. Elvis's history is out of place with Thomas being such a young character as well. Thomas just can't carry the plot in this one

Brother Odd (Odd Thomas Novels)

I love Odd Thomas, Dean Koontz I can take or leave. In his old age, the author is crow baring his wacky right wing politics into the inner voice of a 21 year old. A 21 year old who could not possibly share his conservative views based on the characters life history (and death history). The low point (spoilers ahead) was after a harrowing encounter with an unknown creature that nearly ends in Odds demise, Koontz decides to regale us with a tale of the big bad ACLU and they're determination to undermine social works in our cities tough neighborhoods by insisting on enforcing that Pesky separation of Church and State clause. OoooKay? My favorite, however, was the moment that the "Good Guys" were preparing to battle the "Bad Guys" and it is speculated that Islamo-Facists or Athiest may be behind the plan to murder the nuns, priests and children. Wow, who knew, it was the atheists responsible for all those Holy war / crusades that ended in the deaths of millions over the millennia. Oh, wait.

Koontz is a beautiful writer, and I can forgive the occasional attemp at indoctrination now and again. But this was too much. Give me the story of Odd, leave the politics to the politicians.

I will not be reading any more Odd novels. I already miss him.

As a long time Dean Koontz fan, I can honestly say that his character of Odd Thomas is probably his best creation. I loved the original novel and the quirky sense of humor it introduced. "Brother Odd" takes up right where "Forever Odd" left off. Odd has taken up residence in a monastary to try and sort things out after the events of the last couple novels. Of course, Odd won't get the rest he needs as something is drawing the evil seeking "bodachs" to the school for the special needs kids attached to the monastary. And when the number of the pain loving bodachs increase, it's up to Odd to figure out what disaster is threatening the children, monks & nuns in this wintry and isolated setting.
Koontz introduces some fantastic characters in this novel, Brother Knuckles, a former mob heavy turned Monk is a stand-out favorite of mine. I found quite a few elements of Koontz earlier novels in "Brother Odd", and eagerly went back to re-read such novels as "The Bad Place" & "Dragon Tears" because of similar plot elements. That is not to say "Odd Thomas" is just a rehashing of those things, just that certain elements from earlier novels influenced the action in "Brother Odd".
This is a very quick read as well, perfect for the beach, or for long plane ride. The story and characters are fun, and you will find yourself unable to put the novel down at the end of a chapter. Koontz has a way of filling the novel with multiple cliff-hanger like chapter endings, and you feel compelled to continue reading just to see the outcome. I'm looking forward to the next Odd Thomas book, and hope this series continues to thrive.

Pimsleur is simply the best most useful way to learn a language. It's practical, actually fun, challenging and effective at getting you SPEAKING a language instead of staring at a page trying to memorize rules and vocabulary.

The need to react quickly and the variety of things they throw at you really cement the knowledge and make it instinctive and not just intellectual. It's not cheap, but there is no other substitute out there that comes close to this.

You will need a good book in addition to help formally learn grammar rules and you'll need to learn more vocabulary than you can on an audio program, but when it comes to hitting the ground running and internalizing a language, Pimsleur is the way to go. SIX STARS.

It is a good product for acquiring pronunciation skills, but it would have been better if the supplied manual had included at least the Russian texts of the dialogues. If you are trying to learn Russian on your own, you will need at least a grammar text, a dictionary and perhaps a verb conjugation text. I find it easier if I can visualise the written Russian while trying to speak it.

This is my third Pimisleur language. Great program. But cd case now has
a problem. The cd case for the 30 lesson editions were designed for the
user guide booklet and reading booklet to hold the cds in place. (My
earlier purchased language sets with this arrangement work great and do
not have a problem.) The publisher has changed the guide booklet to a
fold out. With this simple change they created a major problem for
protecting the cds. Now the first half of the cds will not stay in place. The
second half of the cds was designed to use clear plastic stays. They
work great. The first half of the cds will NOT stay in place and do fall
out. The act of carrying the case across the room will have the cds
sliding inside the case. Great care must be used opening the case or the
cds roll across the floor. Pimsleur will replace a damaged cd. The
plastic stay will not work on the front half of the set, only the back half.
They have no solution for the disks falling out. They suggested I buy a
cd case and move my cds into that case. My suggestion to them is they
fix the problem. I paid for a set that now has improper working storing
case.

5 star spoken language program. 1 star for case problem.

Any suggestion on how to hold the cds in the publisher's case is
welcome.

When you learned your native language, what was the most effective grammar lesson? For most people, it had nothing to do with memorizing rules, reading grammar texts, and surviving grammar lectures. You learn the most grammar by repeatedly HEARING grammatically correct sentences. By the time you were old enough to read, you already instinctively understood most of the grammar rules you would now be taught in school.

That is why the Pimsleur method is the cornerstone of my Russian study program. Memorizing a grammar book is not my idea of a fun Saturday. However, listening to these Russians and being taught how to construct grammatically correct sentences without memorizing the rules is a fantastic way to begin learning a languange.

In addition, these CD's will train your ear to comprehend Russian words and accents. No book can train you in this way. To properly and thoroughly learn a language, you need to verbalize it, visualize it, and hear it. Pimsleur's CD's and booklet will give you the fundamentals to do all three from day one, and will continue to develop your skills to a respectable level.

My Listmania contains all the resources I have used or are currently using to learn Russian. There are several valuable resources out there. I believe Pimsleur is the most valuable, and it remains the guiding force of my Russian program.

Pimsleur courses are the best way to start learning a language because they teach you useful stuff from the beginning, thus keeping you motivated to learn more. Sure, they are not enough to achieve real fluency, but neither is a grammar book without audio, especially when it comes to Russian, which is a rather difficult language to pronounce correctly. Besides, unless you are exceptionally self-disciplined, learning just from a textbook is very boring, in fact too boring for most, which means you will quit altogether. As to the price, I will only say it need not necessarily be expensive.

As to the suggestion made by someone that renting subtitled movies is a better choice than a good audio course, I must say that is the worst language-learning advice that has ever grated my ears. As someone who understands several foreign languages (French, Italian, Portuguese and Spanish), I can tell you that subtitles rarely correspond exactly to the actual dialogue, but are instead abbreviated versions of it, usually also cleansed of profanity, etc. Besides, when you hear a whole sentence in an unfamiliar language, it's impossible to make heads or tails of it: you can't tell what is a verb, a noun, etc. Neither will you realize it when a speaker uses non-standard pronunciation or grammar because of a lack of education or regional accent. And you won't even hear the phonemes (sounds) of the language correctly unless you first get your ears used to them, and it's much easier to do that through a specially designed medium, such as a Pimsleur course, than through material designed for native (or at least fluent) speakers, such as a movie.

Bottomline: you need an audio course to properly learn a foreign language and Pimsleur is the best. Get it!

After having visited my medical physicans for months with chronic back pain and digestive pain we hit a roadblock. The physicians could find no reason for my medical issues. MRI, of everything you can think of produced no real diagnosis with the exception of a degenerative disk. I decided to try something different and I struck gold. No longer do I take any medications and I am so much more active. My day to day life has changed as well. In short, I am going through a transformation. Dr. Wayne Dyer has taught me a better approach to life.

Dr. Wayne Dyer really practices what he lectures about . . . I
just heard him on a PBS special, in which he described how he
often sends those who write him a gift for no special reason . . . so when he graciously sent me his live lecture tape series, SECRETS OF YOUR OWN HEALING POWER, I rushed to listen to it . . . my reaction: WOW!

As is the case with any book or tape put out by Dyer, you'll be
inspired and informed when experiencing it . . . in addition, you'll be entertained (as was the group of chiropractic professionals fortunate to be able to hear him).

He emphasizes that the secrets to healing are not somewhere "out
there," but rather, healing is something that takes place inside each and every one of us, occurring when we "connect to our Source" and bring Spirit to the disease." He emphasizes that healers need to be able to banish doubt and see their clients as individuals who already possess the capacity to heal themselves. That is, those with health challenges need to have someone in their energy field who truly believes that healing can take place.

These other observations by Dyer also caught my attention:
Doctors when they misdiagnose . . . do they then agree to having
misbilled?

When you place a label on somebody you negate them. You then
begin to treat the label, not the person.

Four words will end all conflicts in relationships: You're right about that.

This is very inspirational, humorous, frank and informative. Dr Dyer never fails to show me another way or another book which takes me further along the path of development. In this CD he has produced some magnificent work. I laughed, I cried and I was extremely moved. I recommend it to anyone wanting to find the truth of what the world is about.

Listening to Dr. Dyer is refreshing and reinforces what I already know but somehow forget in the process of everyday living.

I really enjoyed the audio book. I felt Mr. Dryer had a good sense of humor yet realistic goals that we can all find our way to. I feel this book would be good for anyone trying to let go of past anger, disappointment, or pain. I have recommended it to many clients of our health library, and the therapists at our clinic are now referring clients to it as well.

My son's school selected this book as the topic of an optional schoolwide discussion. My son is 6 years old. In retrospect, if I had paid a bit more attention to the subject matter, I might not have chosen to participate this year. However, up until the last third of the book, the family deals with situations that are typical of many families--sibling relations, friction between older children and parents, being a nerd at school, learning how to be a friend. Mr. Curtis' writing and Mr. Burton's reading are magic together. My son and I listened to this book on a long car trip, and at one point, when Kenny, the narrator, "makes up" with a friend, I heard him fall back against the back seat with a grateful "whew!"



My husband listened to the last part of the book with my son, so I can't speak to his immediate reaction. However, over the next few weeks, we had several conversations about race relations, which made me grateful that the book had opened the door to discussion. Some families at school did feel that some language was inappropriate for young children but frankly I'm not sure it is any worse than what they hear on TV or at school.

The Watsons are a weird family. It's about a family who has a son thats a deliquent of Juvenile. He bullied kids around and he loved to pick on the main character (his little brother) Kenneth. It's at the point where they have to drive the kid to Grandma Sands house to put him in disipline. The over book is extremely wonderful although there are some intense parts. I encourage all of you to read it.

The Watsons Go to Birmingham was a wonderful treat to listen to. It was funny and contained historical information as well.

Our 12 year old son has proven to do 100% better on all reading projects if he has audio backup to the book he needs to do for school. We found that the audio helps him better his reading skills and overcome some of his dyslexia by doing his reading assignments this way. His teachers are so proud of how he has turn his challange around so well. It sure makes him feel much more a successful reading in getting things done now. All on time as well!!! We had a difficult time finding this CD and other items he has needed in stores. So we hit the Amazon site and have made out just great so far. I am so thankful sor this site for all 3 of our children. We have never had a problem finding the items we need. Thank you Amazon!!!

This CD set is great- the reader is expressive, funny and totally gets the mood of the book. The book itself is both hilarious and surprisingly deep and is not to be missed for anyone, especially young adults. I use this CD to assist struggling readers in the classroom, but all of my students' eyes light up when they see me move towards the CD player!

When I saw a new Garrison Kiellor novel on the shelves I lunged for it in case someone else had spied it! I anxiously awaited the quirky characters of Lake Woebegone, brought to life in his inimitable style. But what I found were quirky characters that I couldn't get connected to at all. All the elements were there but it never connected for me. I left the ending unread. And I'm not usually doing that.

Sorry, Garrison, this one didn't reach me. I will still be interested in the next, though, one dull novel does not a bad bookshelf make!

One of Garrison's best! This novel would make a great movie. Funny and quite in the Lake Wobegon tradition

I love Lake Wobegon. And Garrison Keillor is a master of the tragi-comic. His great strength is to have little events unfold, in a seemingly tranquil setting and then build them up to a grand finale of organized chaos. The tranquil setting certainly exists in Pontoon but the little events / grand finale scaling is off. To be fair, the story of full of colorful characters and all their escapades, and therefore not entirely devoid of charm. Bottom line: Pontoon is not Keillor at his best.

Classic Keillor--humor always framed in gentle humanity; insightful but never disrespectful--a real pleasure to read. There are times I laughed out loud, and others, when I was introspective of his characters' frailities and saw my own. Thank you, Mr. Keillor, for moving Hannibal north to Minnesota. Joy Brewer

Lake Wobegon has three events scheduled on a Saturday afternoon: Evelyn wants her ashes interred in her bowling ball and her grandson decides to paraglide them into place; no one remembers the invitations to a "commitment ceremony" with a hot air balloon, oversized decoys and a pontoon boat; and 24 visiting Danish Lutheran ministers do penance with a trip to the Midwest. All week the details pile up, disintegrate, regroup; a lover (and Elvis) appear as the champagne and shrimp chill. This shaggy dog story (as in Bruno the fishing dog) ends in the waters, reeds and briars. This is Keillor's funniest effort in some time and the dénouement left me laughing out loud. It's good to have the recent sentimentality removed.

The version with a black & white photo of a boy on the cover (ISBN 1438245416) has the wrong description from Amazon--it doesn't have facsimile pages of the original manuscript. But it's a beautifully designed edition at a very low price for the large size (6"x9"--unlike the small mass market paperbacks). It's also printed on high-quality paper--not newsprint like the other versions. A great bargain at this low price.

This was a required reading for my son's class at school. Although he enjoyed the story line, the use of the local slang (written out phonetically ) was difficult for him to read and distracting to the story, he felt.

I have heard about many of the essays included in this text and was excited to find that I could get them all in one book. I love the footnotes for additional information and the fact that the essays include both sides to teaching this book. I highly recommend for anyone who needs to know more about this classic text.

I was introduced to this book back in high-school (in Australia), where my English Literature teach (who was an American) used this as one of our set texts. Despite this, I really enjoyed it, and now, near 20 years later, I picked it up in some second hand book shop for $1.50 and got engrossed in it all over again.

Mark Twain (not his real name) sailed the Mississippi river as a riverboat pilot early in his career, and the truth of his depiction of people and way of life in this novel shines through, despite the fanciful nature of the adventure. I couldn't help but get caught up in the crazy tale of Huck Finn, hopeless trouble-magnet that he is, as he struggles to get free of his troubles with the less-than-helpful assistance of a large cast of characters.

The language is a joy to read. The characters are fun to follow. And although the plot isn't the most complex, the characters themselves do a fabulous job of making the simple into convoluted mayhem. Several times I had to laugh out loud at the absurdity.

Even though I picked this book up cheap, it's well worth hanging onto. I can easily see myself re-reading this again - hopefully before another 20 years pass!

You'll notice pretty quickly when you pick this up that Huck doesn't spell too good and his grammar isn't so hot either. But if you look a little more closely, you find that he sure knows how to use the semi-colon, and his sentence structure is picture perfect. Mr. Twain may have decided that he was going to have some fun with his charming narrator, but he sure wasn't going to sacrifice good writing to do so.

The novel, as everyone knows, is a masterpiece, and works splendidly on every level. Plot, character development, theme; everything is here. Anybody reading this review has probably read the book several times and moreover has probably read about it a dozen more so it's pretty certain that my little review is not going to add much. I would, however, like to comment on something which struck me while reading it most recently, which is how richly it evokes middle America of the mid-nineteenth century. In other words, as well as being literature of the first rank, Huckleberry Finn also functions as a thorough and fascinating historical document of a time and place that every year sinks deeper and deeper into our collective memory.

Here he is describing Uncle Silas' place in Arkansas upon seeing it for the first time. "It was one of these one-horse cotton plantations and they all look alike. A rail fence round a two-acre yard; a stile made out of logs sawed off and up-ended in steps, like barrels of a different length, to climb over the fence with . . . some sickly grass-patches in the big yard, but mostly it was bare and smooth, like an old hat with the nap rubbed off; big double log house for the white folks--hewed logs with the chinks stopped up with mud or mortar, and these mud stripes been white-washed some time or another; round log-kitchen, with a big, broad open but roofed passage joining it to the house . . . hound asleep there in the sun; more hounds asleep round about . . . outside of the fence a garden and a watermelon patch; then the cottonfields begins, and after the fields the woods."

The first thing that strikes you about this is how . . . impoverished this all is, especially compared to how we live today. And this is a cotton-field owner with a number of slaves! But this was the south: rural, poor, hot, languid. Oh, yes, we are all familiar with the palatial southern mansion from novels like Gone With the Wind; I suspect that most of the South in the 1840s was closer to Huck's description than to Margaret Mitchell's.

Here's Huck's description of the town in which the King and Duke put on their first show: "The stores and houses was most all old, shackly, dried-up frame concerns that hadn't ever been painted; they was set up three or four feet above ground on stilts, so as to be out of reach of the water when the river was overflowed. The houses had little gardens around them, but they didn't seem to raise hardly anything in them but jimpson-weeds, and sunflowers, and ash-piles, and old curled up boots and shoes, and pieces of bottles, and rags, and played-out tinware . . . There was generly hogs in the garden, and people driving them out." Charming, eh? Of course, we in our modern twenty-first century aren't immune to such slovenliness. Sometimes, historical descriptions remind us that things don't change much.

Along with his brilliant observations of humanity and the human habitat the novel also contains breathtaking descriptions of nature, especially the Mississippi River. There's heavy timber on the Missouri side, mountains on the Illinois side, the lights of St. Louis: "We run nights, and laid up and hid daytimes; soon as night was most gone we stopped navigating and tied up--nearly always in the dead water under a towhead . . . Next we slid into the water and had a swim, so as to freshen up and cool off; then we sat down on the sandy bottom where the water was about knee-deep, and watched the daylight come. Not a sound anywhere--perfectly still--just like the whole world was asleep, only sometimes the bullfrogs a cluttering, maybe. The first thing you see, looking away over the water, was a kind of dull line--and that was the woods on t'other side." How wonderfully evocative this is; how it makes one ache to experience such things!

Again, the novel is so much more than this. I'm not going to bother with the theme and the plot and the characters--what else is there to say?--but I can not finish this without giving an example or two of the wonderful humor contained in here. Here's the charming Huck after sneaking into the circus under the tent: "I ain't opposed to spending money on circuses when there ain't no other way, but there ain't no use in wasting it on them." And when the King and the Duke run on hard times: "First they done a lecture on temperance, but they didn't make enough for them both to get drunk on. Then, in another village, they started a dancing-school; but they didn't know no more than how to dance than a kangaroo does, so the first prance they made the general public pranced in and pranced them out of town . . . "

Oh, how rich this is. Rich and funny and lovely and hilarious. Read it for the pure entertainment contained in here, if nothing else.

My daughter gave me this CD for Fathers Day and I was so impressed with it that I bought one for my son and son-in-law for Christmas.